Iron Man 3 – Review

I laughed, I swooned, and I damn near had a seizure during a particular scene. But there’s always something I walk away with when I watch super hero movies, though I’ll be damned if I can figure out exactly what that was this time around.

It’s never an easy task to take a look at something beyond its face value. I try to avoid doing so as often as possible because there is no quicker way of becoming one of THOSE people when you try to put yourself out there as someone who sees more than is really there. I’ve never been a geek of that caliber, or at least would ever dream of putting myself out there as an authority on something.

There is maybe one, and only one topic that I am autistic about and that’s Robotech. Iron Man doesn’t even hit the radar.

Enough rambling, you guys clicked this for a review and I’m being extremely long winded about shit that has ZERO to do with the movie in question. Although, if you want the Crom’s honest truth, you’re probably going to find this a bit refreshing after reading the other 3 reviews and the multitude of OTHER websites’ reviews.

If you’re on the fence about seeing this movie, quit it already, it’s a damn fine production. Robert Downey Jr. is superb and in no alternate universe can I see anyone else playing Tony Stark. This goes for the entire cast of characters, especially Don Cheadle as Rhodey, I love Mr. Cheadle’s work. Ok review time.

The Plot/Characters

I honestly don’t know what you’re expecting from a Marvel Studios movie, the plot is straight out of a comic book, with characters playing archetypes and tropes to match them. The introduction of Guy Pearce as Aldrich Killian was great though could have been filled by any generic antagonist actor. Hell even Joe Pesci could have made a good Killian.

That’s not a knock on Mr. Pearce, but more of the boring writing that was given to his character. He had some great lines of dialog, but ultimately there was nothing amazing about Killian to have me oozing about here. In fact without getting into the territory of spoilers, he does one thing in the move that provided the only suspension of disbelief problem that I had, when you see it, I only hope you feel the same way.

I enjoyed the expansion of the character of Pepper Potts as she plays more than the traditional damsel-in-distress. She’s a bit of an asskicker. But once again, without spoilers, I can’t say much.

Do not go to this movie expecting a stretch of the cerebrum or even a mental workout. It’s not Shakespeare or even Jon Favreau…it is uniquely Shane Black.

Really, this movie is screenwriting 101 to the point where I didn’t realize it at first, but the director is the same who did Lethal Weapon oh so long ago, and it feels that way. It’s really a buddy cop movie set during Christmas. I’m really not trying to harp on this film because I really enjoyed the hell out of it.

The Effects

The budget of this movie must have been 90% VFX because there are scenes where I had a hard time picking out what was a practical shot or a digitally edited piece of CG. If I had to find a negative I would say that in some parts of the flick it gets to be a bit too much. I like to think that I have enough of a brain to track multiple things going on, but even I had trouble keeping up with the action.

The Score

Perhaps the weakest part of this movie is the score. There are no memorable points of this movie tied to music for me. The first film had AC/DC’s “Back in Black” during the Afghanistan scene, the second had “Shoot to Thrill” from AC/DC, but the third film…what do you get? Eiffel fucking 65’s “Blue (Da Ba Dee)”. Minus 20 points Gryffindor. I can’t complain about the orchestration because there’s nothing really memorable to write home about. It’s background music at its finest except a really jarring number at the end that serves no purpose except to wake people up who might have fallen asleep, if that’s even possible.

My Biggest Problems

In an effort to keep my love for this movie pure, because it was a great 2 hours spent, it was entertaining, I had fun, and I’d see it again. But it’s not without its own problems.

Mainly, my issues stem from a grossly exaggeration of powers from the villain (not saying which or who) and the apparent under-powering of Iron Man. True he’s spending most the movie in a new version of the armor, it’s not nearly as bad ass as the gear he had in The Avengers.

That brings up my second point. This is part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it takes place after The Avengers. We know there are other supers out there, we know that Nick Fury and the agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. are out and about in the Helicarrier doing god knows what. We even know that Thor is out there somewhere watching what’s happening on Earth (probably watching Natalie Portman shower, can’t blame him). Point being that there’s the vast and rich universe they’ve created with all of the other flicks that they do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING with in this movie. To say I was a tad bit crestfallen would be an understatement.

I wasn’t expecting Cap to come in and rescue anyone, but more of a nod to the existing universe than Jarvis saying something about hacking a S.H.I.E.L.D. database would be nice.

Lastly, they under use Ben Kingsley in this film. He’s a great actor, and he does show his acting chops in this movie, but NOT ENOUGH SCREEN TIME is given to the character of The Mandarin.

I know this sounds like a lot of gripes, and I’m sorry if I’m coming across as negative, but this is not on the same level as The Avengers. It just isn’t. It’s fun. It’s a good movie. I don’t mind the segments with the kid because I got some great laughs out of it and especially how they kept it brief, but with all of the comparisons to The Avengers going around and all of the talk about the buckets of money it’s currently making…I would hope that people can see the few shortcomings it definitely has.

Final Word

Go watch this movie. I’ve said it like 5 times now. It’s great. It’s a ton of fun. I’m not being paid by Marvel/Disney to praise this flick. I’m just a fan with a blog who loves his comic book movies. I just think that we might be approaching a time in the next 4-5 years where we see a waning of this genre, so enjoy the glory while we still can. I just think that as far as Iron Man movies go, this is probably my least favorite of the three however, it’s still an Iron Man movie which means it’s automatically placed higher than most cinema.

I sit upon my throne as the owner/shogun of this site, WatchPlayRead. But it wasn't always so. I too have had blogspots, I've done other community blogs, I've even written professionally for other sites out there...yet none of them provided the content I had a real passion for.
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